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May 2020

A portrait of viral antisemitism Right from Wrong: Though COVID-19 may be novel, there is nothing new about blaming the People of the Book for the world’s ills. Ruthie Bum

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/right-from-wrong-a-portrait-of-viral-antisemitism-628125

Nothing serves as a better Petri dish for the incubation of antisemitism than a global health crisis that causes economies to crash. It is no wonder, then, that the coronavirus pandemic has been an inspiration to Jew-haters and Israel-bashers of all strains.

Though COVID-19 may be novel, there is nothing new about blaming the People of the Book for the world’s ills. On the contrary, the phenomenon is as old and entrenched as the common cold.

But while quarantines were being imposed to “flatten the curve,” they simultaneously sparked an outbreak of antisemitic conspiracy theories about the ostensibly Jewish origin and spread of the infectious disease. Lockdowns also led to a burst of creative energy on the part of holed-up cartoonists whose work would have made the Third Reich proud.

Unlike the Nazi propaganda machine, however, today’s caricaturists have the weapon of social media at their disposal – one that has proven immune to vows by Facebook and Twitter to confront with “community standards” algorithms.

Yes, curbing anti-Jewish expression on the Internet by suspending individual posts is about as realistic a proposition as curing corona by donning a surgical mask – especially with the massive amount of web traffic that home isolation has wrought.

Lessons for Liberators   by Tabitha Korol

“A Little Piece of Ground,” by Elizabeth Laird, is a propagandist book available to all children in many libraries across the country.  It concerns 12-year-old Karim who lives in Ramallah, historically an Arab Christian town, now a Palestinian city in central West Bank (Judea and Samaria), 10 km north of Jerusalem, Israel.  He hears of nothing but violence and aspires to be the Liberator of Palestine.

Karim resides with his parents and three siblings on the fifth floor of an apartment building.  He hates living under the occupation, yet no one has told him that the Israelis ceased its occupation three years before he was born.  He knows that a Palestinian gunman shot two people in an Israeli café two weeks ago and, as a consequence, the next building was demolished.  His building is on lockdown, guarded by an Israeli tank to ensure that no one may enter or leave until further notice.  The residents may not go to work or shop for food, and his school was levelled, the computers confiscated.  

                        

More recently, a Palestinian gunman opened fire in Jerusalem, gravely injuring five adults and three children.  Three days later, new curfew hours were announced for his area, allowing two hours for shopping and errands.   That evolved into free daytime hours, but confinement continues from evening through dawn.  Now his father may tend his store and inventory, his mother may take the baby to the doctor, and Karim and Joni meet a new friend, Hopper, with whom to play soccer – until dusk. 

Chuck Brooks on Protecting Data and Artificial Intelligence

 “Three Steps for Protecting Data in the Public and Private Sectors” Link: https://www.govconwire.com/2020/05/govcon-expert-chuck-brooks-three-steps-for-protecting-data-in-the-public-and-private-sectors/

My interview on Artificial Intelligence: The Word is “Altruism” Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) Inception Episode 3:

Link:

https://lnkd.in/e_AxWGb

“Humanitarian Hoax” Author Linda Goudsmit Interviewed by Sharon Rondeau

https://www.thepostemail.com/2020/05/05/the-post-email-interviews-humanitarian-hoax-author-linda-goudsmit/

“WHO BENEFITS?” by Sharon Rondeau
Last week, The Post & Email had the pleasure of interviewing Linda Goudsmit, the author of a sizable series published on her blog over nearly three years.  Recently Goudsmit compiled all 50 articles into a book titled, The Book of Humanitarian Hoaxes:  Killing America with ‘Kindness’.

Goudsmit told us that her series arose from her conclusion that there is “a monstrous power-grab” aimed at consolidating authority under the United Nations to enable “one-world government.”

Contemplating her launch of the articles, which total 50, Goudsmit told us, “To me, it’s so interesting.  I’m 72 years old; I never, ever dreamed that in my retirement, I would become a political analyst.  I was an English major in college, and reading and analyzing books was my life.  I have four children, the oldest born in 1973 and the youngest in 1979, the year President Carter established the U.S. Department of Education.  I noticed the change in education when my youngest child was in elementary school in the 80s.  It was called ‘cooperative learning.’  Instead of individual learning, students learned in groups and the schools started introducing pro-collectivist materials into the educational curriculum.”

Fast-forward to today, Goudsmit observed, “It’s frightening.  Now we’re in the third generation of students indoctrinated toward collectivism and one-world government. I didn’t understand then what I was looking at, but what I understood was that when I was young, there were social pressures.  At that time, you grew up; you became a solid citizen, you pledged allegiance to the United States of America. People had differences of opinion but we loved the country; we were taught to love the country.”

Brennan and Co. Targeted Flynn In Part Because He Knew About Billions They Were Running Off The Books Sara Lee,

http://stupidfrogs.org/article/brennan_and_co_targeted_flynn_in_part_because_he_knew_about_billions_they_were_running_off_the_books.html

Word broke nationally Tuesday that former Obama-era CIA Director John Brennan had suppressed evidence that Vladimir Putin was more interested in a Hillary Clinton win in 2016 than a Donald Trump win. My colleague Nick Arama covered the rumblings of that story in late April.

Brennan, in fact, seems to the be the big fish under U.S. Attorney John Durham’s microscope, but not just because of the latest news about suppressing Putin’s preferences. Sidney Powell, the formidable attorney responsible for helping Ret. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn successfully battle the drummed-up charges against him, has very specifically said Brennan has his fingerprints all over the smearing of her client because Flynn had a keen interest in auditing the intelligence community and ferreting out corruption.

But it’s the corruption itself that’s stunning. In early April, Powell told the Vicki McKenna Show that the disgraced intel leader and others in the intelligence community were targeting Flynn over billions of taxpayer dollars that he knew were not being properly accounted for.

“Powell, who took over Flynn’s defense last summer, told the Vicki McKenna Show on 1310 WIBA Madison on Tuesday that her client was ‘totally set up’ because he threatened to expose wrongdoing by top intelligence officials in the Obama administration,” the Washington Examiner reported Wednesday.

“He was going to audit the intel agencies because he knew about the billions [former Obama era CIA Director John] Brennan and company were running off books,” she said.

Judge Sullivan Ignores Shocking Record of False Guilty Pleas

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/judge-sullivan-ignores-shocking-record-of-false/91

We may be slow, we often say, but then again, too, we didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. So in respect of Judge Emmet Sullivan’s outrage over General Michael Flynn’s desire to withdraw his guilty plea, let us just say our eyes are dry. The judge has gone so far as to appoint an ex-judge to recommend whether to charge the general for lying when he pled guilty. As if such pleading guilty to a crime one didn’t commit is all that unusual.

The fact is that it’s by no means rare for persons to plead guilty to crimes they didn’t commit. Some are scared. Others confused. Some lack the intestinal fortitude or financial wherewithal to stand up against the warnings or threats from the prosecutors. What’s so unusual in the Flynn case is that the Democrats and liberals are siding against the poor schlepper caught in the prosecutorial vice.

It turns out that one serious liberal institution, the Innocence Project, maintains a whole Website devoted to persons who plead guilty to crimes they didn’t commit. It’s called GuiltyPleaProblem.com. The first click on it brings up a headline asking the question, “Why do innocent people plead guilty to crimes they didn’t commit?” The Website offers illuminating background to the problem.

Judge Sullivan: A Prosecutor in Robes by Alan M. Dershowitz

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16025/judge-emmet-sullivan

In the Flynn case, the prosecution and defense both agree that the case should be dropped. Because there is no longer any controversy between the parties to be resolved, there is no longer any case properly before the judge. His only job is to enter an order vacating the guilty plea and dismissing the case with prejudice.

Under our constitutional system of separation of powers, the new prosecutor has no standing…. the separation of powers…. allocates the power to prosecute to the executive not judicial branch.

It makes no constitutional difference that Flynn pleaded guilty — even if his plea was voluntary, which is questionable in light of the threats against his son.

The Justice Department has the constitutional authority to dismiss a prosecution that it has brought at any time and for any reason, without being second-guessed by the judicial branch.

[Sullivan] is endangering our system of separation of powers and he should be stopped by a writ of mandamus or a motion to recuse. Judges, too, are not above the law or the Constitution.

Judge Emmet Sullivan’s decision to appoint a retired federal judge to argue against the Justice Department’s entirely proper decision to end the criminal prosecution of General Michael Flynn is designed to circumvent the constitutional limitation on the jurisdiction of federal judges. The Constitution limits this jurisdiction to actual cases and controversies. There must be disagreement between the parties that requires resolution by a judge. If the parties agree, there is nothing for the judge to decide.

Losing Our Fears, in War and Plague By Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/coronavirus-pandemic-us-economy-lessons-from-world-war-2/ 

Does World War II offer any lessons regarding our wrecked economy and staggering unemployment from the lockdown reaction to the coronavirus?

Seventy-five years ago this month, Germany surrendered, ending the European theater of World War II. At the war’s beginning, no one believed Germany would utterly collapse in May 1945.

On the morning of December 7, 1941, the day of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, German invaders were on the verge of capturing Moscow. Britain was isolated. London had barely survived a terrible German bombing during the Blitz.

A sleeping America was neutral, but it was beginning to realize it was weak and mostly unarmed in a scary world.

But by 1943, a booming U.S. economy was fielding vast military forces from Alaska to the Sahara. Britain and America were bombing the German heartland. The Soviet Red Army had trapped and destroyed a million-man German army at Stalingrad.

How did the Allies — Britain, the Soviet Union, and the U.S. — turn around the European war so quickly?

The huge Red Army would suffer close to 11 million deaths in halting German offensives. Britain would never give up despite terrible losses at home and at sea from German bombers, rockets, and submarines.

Yet the key to victory was the U.S. economy. It would eventually outproduce all the major economies on both sides of the war combined.

The Constitution Requires Judge Emmet Sullivan’s Lawless Amicus Order Against Michael Flynn Be Overturned By Margot Cleveland

https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/14/the-constitution-requires-judge-emmet-sullivans-lawless-amicus-order-against-michael-flynn-be-overturned/

The U.S. Constitution makes clear that the judiciary has no business second-guessing prosecutorial decisions. That’s what Michael Flynn judge Emmet Sullivan decided to do.

On May 13, Judge Emmet Sullivan issued a blatantly biased and unconstitutional order in the long-lasting Michael Flynn criminal case. To preserve the rule of law and our constitutional separation of powers, the Department of Justice has no choice now but to seek a writ of mandamus from the D.C. Circuit Court ordering the criminal charge against Flynn dismissed and reassigning the case to another judge.

On Tuesday, Judge Sullivan shocked court watchers when he entered an order stating that, “at the appropriate time,” he intended to enter a scheduling order permitting “amicus curiae” or friend of the court briefs to be filed in Flynn case. Flynn, who more than a year ago pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI, was seeking to withdraw his guilty plea when the Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss the criminal charge against Flynn.

The government’s motion to dismiss highlighted new evidence uncovered by an outside U.S. attorney, Jeff Jensen, and detailed the government’s position that even if Flynn had made false statements to FBI agents about his conversations with the Russian ambassador, as a matter of law there was no crime because the false statements were not “material” to a legitimate investigation.

DNI Richard Grenell Deserves the Nation’s Gratitude By Gina Loudon

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/05/14/dni_richard_grenell_deserves_the_nations_gratitude_143200.html

Before he was appointed U.S. ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell was a foreign policy expert and a media commentator, recognized for his insight and independent analysis. Now that he’s the acting Director of National Intelligence, Grenell is after one thing on behalf of the American people: the truth. In his role as the DNI, Grenell has used his power responsibly, thoughtfully, and constitutionally to find the facts about what happened across the intelligence agencies serving the American people and how they were weaponized for political purposes before and after the 2016 election. 

Although Grenell’s appointment earlier this year was always intended to be temporary, he has not taken the job lightly. Just weeks into his new role, Grenell began reforming the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to enhance transparency and accountability while implementing measures to protect our intelligence agencies from future political interference.  

In May, Grenell announced even more structural reforms designed to improve ODNI’s efficiency and effectiveness. “[M]ore changes to come…because there have been 4 studies in the last 2 years from other career IC officials asking for reforms,” Grenell tweeted, adding that these reforms “should have been done before I arrived.” 

But Grenell’s most important contribution to justice — and truth — has been his decision to declassify the list of former Obama administration officials who “unmasked” the identity of the former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Thanks to Grenell’s efforts, Americans now know that the Obama administration abused its power during the 2016 campaign in order to illegally spy on Donald Trump’s associates.